I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 137: The Cracks in the Shield Wall

On the windswept banks of the Danube, the frontier felt like the edge of the world. Here, civilization was a thin line of fortified camps and disciplined legions holding back an ocean of wilderness. In the command tent of the Fourteenth Legion, General Gaius Maximus stared at the dispatch in his hand, his face a mask of hardened leather carved by decades of sun and war. A muscle tightened in his jaw, the only outward sign of his profound unease. The dispatch was a copy of the Emperor's new orders for the Devota cohort in Noricum, passed through his regional command for logistical provisioning. It was, without question, the strangest military order he had ever read.

His second-in-command, a grizzled, grey-bearded legate named Marcus, stood beside him. "A 'heretic hunt,' sir?" Marcus asked, his voice a low rumble of disbelief. "He's pulling a cohort off a Senatorial commission, a mission of Roman peace, to go chasing after some barbarian shaman?"

"So it would seem," Maximus replied, his voice flat. He placed the papyrus on the campaign table, its surface covered with detailed military maps of the provinces. He tapped a finger on the location of the massacre. "This isn't a military order. It's a religious decree. We have procedures for this kind of threat. We use speculatores, trained scouts who can move unseen for months, to gather intelligence. We don't send in a full cohort of legionaries, and we certainly don't send in those legionaries."

He looked at Marcus, his eyes troubled. "The Devota are hammers, Marcus. They are brave, no doubt, and fanatically loyal to the Emperor. But you do not use a hammer to perform surgery. You do not send them to find a man. You send them to burn a village to the ground."

Maximus was trapped. His loyalty to Alex was absolute, forged in the crucible of the Danubian wars when the boy-emperor had saved them all. He loved Alex like a son. But he was also a soldier of Rome, a man of tradition and honor, and this order felt wrong. It felt impulsive, erratic. It smelled of the palace, not the battlefield. He could not disobey a direct, coded imperial command. But he would not follow it blindly. He had a duty not just to obey the Emperor, but to protect him, even from himself.

He strode to the tent flap and called for his aide. "Find me Optio Valerius. Tell him it is urgent."

A few minutes later, Valerius entered the tent. He was a man of medium height and build, with a quiet, unassuming demeanor that made him easy to overlook. He was also the best scout in the entire legion, a veteran who was said to be able to track a ghost across bare rock. He stood at ease, his eyes missing nothing.

Maximus looked at the scout, a man he trusted implicitly. "Valerius," he began, his voice low and serious. "I have a delicate mission for you, one that does not go into any official record. The Emperor has given the Devota cohort a... special task in the Norican mountains. A hunt."

He paused, letting the weight of the unspoken hang in the air. "I want you to shadow them. They are not to know you are there. Observe them from a distance. I want to know what this 'dark shaman' they are hunting truly looks like. I want to know who they are fighting. And I want to know exactly what Titus Pullo and his fanatics are doing in the Emperor's name. You will carry three message birds. You will report only to me. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, General," Valerius said, his voice as quiet as his presence. He gave a single, sharp nod, turned, and melted back out of the tent.

Maximus watched him go, a grim feeling settling in his stomach. He had just dispatched his own spy to spy on the Emperor's secret army. It felt like a betrayal, but he prayed to the gods it was a necessary one.

Hundreds of miles away, in the heart of Rome, the air in the Curia Hostilia was thick with the scent of old stone, sweat, and fear. The news of the massacre in Noricum had swept through the capital like a fever, and Lucilla, Alex's sister, was its chief physician, expertly diagnosing the illness and offering her own bitter cure.

She stood before the assembled Senate, a striking figure in a simple, dark purple stola that made her look more like a grieving matriarch than a political power player. But her voice was not the voice of a mourner; it was the clear, ringing trumpet of a commander.

"Fathers of the Senate," she proclaimed, her gaze sweeping across the anxious faces of the most powerful men in the world. "We are a city of laws. We are an Empire of order. And yet, on our very doorstep, Roman provincials, men under our protection, have been butchered like cattle!"

A murmur of angry agreement rippled through the chamber.

"My brother, the Emperor," she continued, her tone a masterful blend of familial loyalty and sharp critique, "in his wisdom, attempted a solution of diplomacy. He sent a mixed commission of city soldiers and frontier pioneers, led by our most respected and honorable elder, Senator Rufus. But the time for such things, for such delicate balancing acts, is over! While this commission was still debating supply routes and jurisdiction, our people were being slaughtered!"

She let the accusation hang in the air. She wasn't directly blaming Alex, but she was painting his 'clever' plan as a catastrophic failure of indecision.

"This is not a task for a commission!" her voice rose, filled with a righteous fire that captivated the room. "This is not a matter for legal debate! This is a task for a Legion!"

She took a step forward, her eyes flashing. "The Legio I Urbana stands ready! They are not dandies or fanatics; they are the sons of Rome, the men who stood upon our walls and swore an oath to defend this city and its people. Their loyalty is to the Senate and to the citizens of this great Empire!"

It was a brilliant, subtle distinction. The Devota were loyal to Alex the God. Her legion was loyal to Rome the Institution.

"Give us this task," she implored, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial, powerful plea. "Let the Urbana march north. Let us secure the province of Noricum, avenge our fallen brothers, and restore true Roman order where my brother's... complex strategies have so tragically failed. It is not a privilege I ask for. It is our duty!"

The senators, already swayed by her populist public works, unnerved by the brutal news from the frontier, and deeply uncomfortable with the stories of Alex's fanatical 'plague legion,' found themselves nodding in agreement. Her proposal was simple, strong, and traditional. It was the Roman way.

Lucilla stood before them, a portrait of strength and resolve, publicly challenging her brother's authority and strategy under the guise of patriotic duty. She was using the very crisis he was desperately trying to manage in secret as a political ladder, climbing towards a position of military power that would make her not just his rival, but his equal.

The cracks in the shield wall of Alex's regime were beginning to show. On the frontier, his most loyal general, a man who would die for him, was now moving in the shadows, driven by a profound doubt in his Emperor's judgment. And here, in the heart of the Empire, his most dangerous rival was turning the fear he had created into a weapon aimed directly at his throne. The secret war had barely begun, and already, its consequences were threatening to tear his human alliances apart.